A Fatal Choice
by skycloud86
Summary: What if Jack really had killed Nina at the construction site? Spoilers for Day One
1. Heartbreak

_**Author's Note - What if Jack really had killed Nina at the construction site? Spoilers for Day One**_

They had arrived at the construction site and parked up. Terrified, Nina's fingers were ghostly white as they clung to the steering wheel. Gaines had given Jack a choice, one which would break his heart no matter what - kill Nina, or lose his family. Ordering Nina out of the car, he had to force her out. At that moment in time, he just wanted to find the son of a bitch who was making him do this and make him regret every minute he had been alive.

"I'm sorry Nina, they have my family", Jack pleaded. Nina was shocked and angry, and she was trying hard not to cry.

"You're going to kill me right here?", she yelled at him.

"I have no choice", Jack replied, trying to turn Nina around so that he didn't have to look at her face as he shot her, wanting to remember her as she was before this whole crisis. Ira was beginning to get angry, and he commanded Jack to get on with it.

"Enough! Just do it Jack!', he warned, before adding,'Kimberley's dead if you don't do it".

"Please forgive me Nina", Jack begged her. This was one of the hardest choices he had ever made in his life, if it could be called a choice. Either way, someone he loved would be dead because of him.

"Shoot her Jack! Now!", Ira's annoyed voice in his ear again. Jack promised himself that Ira would pay for this.

Jack held her as they stood at the top of the hill. As each bullet was fired, he hoped that the flak jacket she was wearing would protect her from each and every single shot. He fired four times, to make it look good and pushed her down the hill and, when her body had stopped moving, he looked at her sadly, before climbing back into the car. Driving off, he saw the two men who had followed them pointing a video camera at Nina, so that their boss could see that Nina was indeed dead. He considered them to be no better than a pair of vultures.

As the two cars drove off, Nina was dying. The flak jacket had stopped three of the four bullets, but the fourth had hit her in the chest, and as she bled to death, she thought of Jack, of his family, and forgave him. Her eyes closing for the last time, she let out a small sigh, and died alone in the shade.


	2. Breakdown

**1.00pm, CTU Los Angeles**

As an exhausted Jack was escorted back into CTU, Tony made a beeline for him. Curious to find out more about the events of earlier that morning as well as the whereabouts of his girlfriend Nina, he was surprised and somewhat concerned when Jack went as white as a ghost at the mention of Nina's name.

"Whadda ya mean, Tony? She's not back yet?", an anxious Jack questioned him, as confusion grew on the younger agent's face.

"She was with you, Jack. Where did you go?". Tony was starting to get annoyed. Jack had been acting strange all day, although Tony had tolerate it because of the situation regarding Jack's family, but now that it was all over, he wanted Jack to give him some answers.

"You need to get two agents, have them go to a construction site in east LA!", Jack pleaded with him, hoping that Nina would be OK, as well as wondering whether she would ever forgive him.

"What? Why?", Tony was now even more confused.

"It was Gaines, Tony. Remember the bugs on the cameras Jamey set up for him? He saw that Nina was getting too close for comfort and he...he wanted me to shoot her, Tony", Jack explained. Tony's soulful brown eyes widened considerably. Jack had shot Nina?!

"You didn't Jack. Please tell me you didn't...", Tony pleaded with Jack. Although he and Nina were no Romeo and Juliet, he still had a lot of affection for her, which never really seemed to be reciprocated.

"I put a flak jacket on her, Tony. She should be back by now", Jack was worried. Nina was a pretty capable person and it just didn't seem right that she wouldn't have managed to get back to CTU.

"I'll send Ivers and Clarke to go get her, Jack", Tony assured him, his voice and demeanour now much calmer.

**1.35pm, construction site**

The SUV sped into the construction site and found a resting place near to where Jack said he had shot Nina. Ivers, who had been driving, jumped out of the car and started to survey the area. Although it was a Tuesday, the site was empty and the place had an eerie silence.

"We're here, Tony! There's a hill nearby, did Jack say he pushed her down there?", Clark enquired to Tony over the phone as he walked towards the slope and looked down. Noticing Nina lying on the ground, he confirmed to Tony that they had located her.

"She's probably unconscious, Ivers! Get the first aid kit!", Clark shouted as he descended down the hill. He knelt down next to Nina, and placed two fingers on her neck to find her pulse. Having no luck, he tried her wrist and again found no pulse. Slowly, he pushed the flak jacket to the side and noticed the bullet wound and he and Ivers looked at each other, not sure what to do.

"Tony?", Clark spoke over the phone, feeling sorry for him.

"I'm sorry, Tony, she's dead. One of the bullets hit her", he confirmed, looking at Ivers as he delivered the news. Ivers played nervously with her hair, and she just wanted to get out of her. Although as a field agent she wasn't exactly new to seeing death, this was different. She had seen Nina hours earlier, alive and well. Taking the flak jacket off of Nina, she placed it gently over Nina's head.

**1.50pm, CTU Los Angeles**

Tony sat back in his chair, devastated. As he slowly hung up the phone, his eyes wandered to a small note that Nina had written earlier that morning. Although it was nothing of any great importance, he studied her neat handwriting. He picked up the note and held it in his palm and, when he had finished reading it, he fisted his hand, crunching the paper up. With no words spoken, he walked to the holding room that Jack was in and calmly punched in the door code. As he entered, Jack stood up.

"Tony, what is it? Is Nina OK?", he enquired anxiously. This was answered by a swift punch to the face from Tony. As Jack fell to the floor, Tony stood over him, his features angry and wild.

"No, Jack, she isn't. One of your bullets hit her! She was probably dead before you even left the scene!", he yelled at Jack, who looked horrified.

"Oh god, no! Tony, I'm so sorry, i had no choice!", Jack pleaded with him. He really had had no choice at the construction site, even if Gaines gave the impression that he did. he tried to calm Tony down, but to no avail.

"You had no choice? What would he have done if you hadn't killed her, Jack?", Tony questioned him, his voice still angry and volatile.

"He would have killed my family", Jack said, his voice barely louder than a whisper. For a minute, Tony's anger remained, before it was replaced by empathy.

"Man, I'm sorry, Jack, but I loved Nina, even if she didn't love me", he said as he helped Jack back up. Leaning against the wall, he wondered why Jack's family had anything to do with Palmer. Now that the threat was far more personal, Tony felt a surge of energy run though him.

"We'll stop this threat, Jack, and they'll pay", Tony spoke as he left the room, adamant that he would find the sons of bitches who had caused so much grief.

Alone in the room, Jack thought of his family, of Nina. Why did a good person have to die, why did an innocent mother and daughter have to be put in danger? What was the thread that ran through all of the different factors? he felt as if part of him was gone, stolen from him by the terrorists who would have killed his family. He realised that he had to make sure the threat was well and truly eliminated, to avenge Nina, Walsh and every single person whose life had been damaged or destroyed by the terrorists.


	3. Revelations

**Palmer's hotel, Los Angeles**

"Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!", Elizabeth Nash screamed as she plunged the letter opener deep into Alexis' stomach. The SWAT team reacted quickly and managed to pull the pair apart. The wound was serious and Drazen needed urgent medical attention. Jack looked at Elizabeth as she dissolved into tears, and wondered if his plan had been the right one, as Ivers tried to comfort the distraught woman. Jack rushed to Alexis and tried to stem the flow of blood.

"Get me some towels from the bathroom! Ivers, call in a medevac. We're losing him! We cannot let him die! Dammit!", he was sweaty and stressed, and nothing he did seemed to stop the blood. Looking at Alexis' face, he saw pain in the young man's eyes, but felt no sympathy for him. He wasn't an innocent victim in this, he was part of the plan to kill Palmer and take revenge on Jack, and was therefore responsible for the death of Nina Myers and the kidnapping of his family. As soon as Alexis had been stabilised and removed from the room, Jack's phone went off, and an annoyed Mason was on the other end, yelling at him for the blunder.

"Look, I don't know what you want me to say. We misjudged her emotional state", he reasoned with Mason. He had been focussed on the threat to Palmer, and had found no indication that Elizabeth Nash would suddenly attack Drazen.

"No, we didn't. You did", Mason replied, putting the blame on Jack, which was something he was used to by now.

"Mason, it was an unexpected outcome for everyone". It really was, especially as Elizabeth had seemed so calm before she attacked Alexis. Jack knew that if Mason was pissed, Palmer would be even angrier. Elizabeth's father was a close adn old friend of his and he had known Elizabeth since she was born.

"It's exactly what I said it was gonna be. It was a bad idea", Mason continued. He tended to criticise Jack a lot, mainly because Jack didn't always respect the rules, a quality Mason both envied and liked in equal measure.

"Fine. Maybe. Right now we need to figure out what our next move is", Jack decided not to continue with the circular argument and moved on to their next plan.

"So what is that? What's the status on Alexis?", Mason asked, the angry tone in his voice suddenly replaced by one more business-like.

"They're giving him a fifty-fifty shot, but even if he comes through, they don't know how long it's gonna be till he talks", Jack stated, hoping that Alexis did indeed pull through. He could give them valuable information, whether he wanted to or not, adn Jack certainly knew that he would do everything in his power to make sure that he did.

"Did you find anything in the room? Any phone numbers? Any Documents?", Mason enquired. It was a logical assumption that Alexis would be carrying something that would help them pick up a thread.

"No, nothing yet", Jack said, as he watched the CTU agents tear apart the room.

"So what am I supposed to tell District, huh?", Mason asked, the annoyed tone growing back.

"Tell them whatever you have to. Just keep them off my back. I'm gonna need time before I have to start filling out a bunch of field reports". The last thing Jack wanted was to be buried under a mountain of paperwork. His expertise was in the field, fighting the terrorists physically, rather than doing so sat at a computer.

A concerned Senator Palmer rushed into the room, worry etched onto his face.

"Let me in!", he demanded, his eyes locking onto Jack Bauer.

"Hold on. Senator…", Jack lowered the phone and looked at Palmer, wondering how he was going to explain what had just happened.

"Where's Elizabeth? I heard something about a stabbing?", he asked Jack, worried for his friend.

"She's fine, sir", Jack assured him with a calm voice.

"Where is she?", Palmer asked.

"She's across the hall. She's in custody", Jack responded, not exactly happy to tell the Senator that his friend was being held.

"What?! Why?", Palmer was shocked, as well as angry at Jack for putting Elizabeth in the situation in the first place, although Elizabeth had agreed to do so.

"She stabbed Drazen", was all that Jack could say, hoping that Elizabeth wouldn't face any criminal charges. Not that any sensible judge or jury would convict someone for doing what Elizabeth did in the circumstances she had been put in.

"She must have been defending herself", Palmer argued. The Elizabeth Nash he knew would never attack someone unless she had a very good reason to.

"No, sir, that's not the way it went down. She broke from the plan. She attacked him", Jack noted the look of disbelief on Palmer's face, knowing that he too would not accept such a reality if he were in the Senator's shoes.

"I should never have let her go through with it in the first place!", Palmer said angrily as he left to go to the other room. Jack tried to get his attention, but the Senator didn't hear him. Telling Mason that he would call back, he hung up and followed Palmer into the other room.

After another brief conversation with Palmer, Ivers caught Jack's attention.

"Jack!", she said, holding a ringing phone in her hand.

"What?", he replied back. It seemed like he was being chucked from one person to another and he wondered if the day would ever end.

"It's Alexis's phone. What do we do?", Ivers stated as she handed Jack the phone.

"We gotta take a chance", he said as he looked at the phone in his hand. As he answered it, he considered the consequences of the phone conversation he was about to have. Would it even be relevant to the threat?

"Yeah?", he answered, hoping that the caller would not recognise the unexplained shift from a Serbian accent to a raspy American one.

"Do you have the money?". Short and sweet, Jack thought. This guy obviously was not one for small talk, something which Jack admired. He knew the importance of getting to the point rather than standing around avoiding what needed to be done.

"Yeah", Jack replied in a deceptively calm voice.

"OK. We'll meet in 45 minutes", the caller, an American with a Californian accent, confirmed to him.

"Where?"

"I already told you! At Connie's. Downtown". Jack hoped that this wouldn't arouse the caller's suspicions.

"How will I recognize you?", Jack queried, hoping that this was information that the caller hadn't already given Alexis.

"I'll wear a red baseball cap", the caller answered, before hanging up.

Giving the phone back to Ivers, Jack mentally planned out his course of action. The caller didn't seem to know Alexis too well, so hopefully he hadn't seen Alexis before. Although both Jack and Alexis were blond, Alexis was slightly taller and younger and their facial features were worlds apart. Jack told the CTU agents in the room to look for any money. Minutes later, a briefcase was searched, adn bearer bonds were pulled out of it.

"Found it!", Ivers confirmed, holding out the bonds.

"What?", Jack asked, as he rummaged through a drawer.

"Bearer bonds", Ivers replied, as Jack took them out of her hand adn studied them.

"As good as cash and easier to move. You got the address of the restuarant yet?", Jack enquired. They were running out of time, and Jack knew that the next hour or so would be critical if they were to kill the threat.

"California Plaza. It's about 20 minutes from here", Ivers confirmed, much to Jack's relief. That gave them plenty of time to set up the operation.

"Good", Jack replied absent-mindedly as he counted the bonds.

"How are you gonna pull this off, Jack? Pretending to be Alexis?", Ivers asked. She was worried that Jack was getting himself into a danegrous situation. Ivers hadn't known Jack for very long, but what she did know about him was impressive.

"I don't know yet. Hey, Jake. Jake, come here. Give me your shirt", Jack said as he approached another agent of similar build in order to replace his blood-stained shirt.

"I'm going with you. Coordinate your backup", Ivers replied, adn Jack didn't argue. As he moved out of the room, he accidentally knocked over the open briefcase, scattering the contents all over the floor. Bending down to pick them up, something caught his eye. It was a picture. A black adn white photograph of some street in what Jack recognised as Belgrade. There was a woman in the photo, adn Jack swore that the woman was Nina. Turning over the photo, there was a name written in Cyrillic on the back, "Yelena".


	4. Epiphany

**Port of Los Angeles, Dock 11A**

Now that Kim was safe, Jack and the tac team could take out the Drazens with ease. Jack was understandably determined to end the threat to both Palmer and his family. In the back of his mind, he thought of the photograph of Nina. He had had the photograph analysed, and it was confirmed, much to Jack's shock and dismay, that it was indeed Nina in the picture. Milo had looked up any information on a Yelena and cross-referenced the name with the Drazens, but had found nothing that could give Jack the answers he desperately wanted. Why was Nina in Serbia? Who was Yelena? What did she have to do with the Drazens?

Storming the dock was the easy part. Making sure they caught at least one of the Drazens alive was a bit trickier, especially as Andre soon fell into the dark, cold waters riddled with bullets. Searching for any survivors, Jack sneaked around the buildings and his perseverance was soon rewarded as he noticed Victor Drazen lying on the floor, a bullet wound in his leg all too obvious. Approaching Victor, he noticed that Victor was still alive.

"Your sons are dead, Drazen. You, however, I need alive. You've got answers that I want and you're gonna give them to me, understood?", he growled at Drazen, who simply smirked at him and said nothing, until Jack pressed his foot down on the bullet wound. Waiting for Drazne's howls of pain to subside, he ordered two agents to secure Drazen and take him back to CTU. As they did so, Jack leaned against a crate and looked out across the ocean. The threat had finally been eliminated and if Jack had been anyone else, he would have called it a day right there, but he knew that the day was nowhere near over yet.

Back at CTU, a relieved Teri was sat in the conference room. She had just been told that Kim was safe and was on her way back, and that Jack would also soon return. It had been a long day, one in which the wall between Jack's work and their life as a family had well and truly been demolished. Teri had not been too aware of what Jack did for a living, and the wall was both a curse and a blessing. It had kept her safe from the dangers and horrors that Jack face, but it had also caused them to drift apart and they had recently been separated for quite a few months. Her face lit up as her daughter rushed into the room and embraced her tightly.

"Mom! I'm so glad to see you! Is it over?", Kim asked her mother, who smiled at her daughter.

"Yeah, it is. We're going to be a family again, Kim", she replied. Her maternal instincts had really helped her through the day, and she had gone through experiences she never wanted to repeat. As Jack came into the room, he hugged his family, thankful that his efforts to keep them safe had succeeded.

"I'm so glad to see you two again, and I promise never to let you get put in such a dangerous situation again", he assured him, before planting an affectionate kiss on teri's cheek. His smile vanished as he realised that he still had some unfinished business.

"I'm gonna have to go and sort something out, but as soon as I've finished, we can go home", he told them, reluctantly pulling out of the embrace.

Drazen was lost in his own thoughts, not really paying attention to an annoyed Chappelle, who was beginning to question why Jack had insisted in capturing him alive and as Jack entered the room, eyes fixed on Drazen, Chappelle decided to find out.

"Because he knows something about this", Jack replied with no emotion, as he chucked the photograph of Nina onto the table. Drazen took his eyes off of Jack and studied the photograph, before returning his attention to Jack.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you Bauer, but I don't", he replied, his mouth curling into an arrogant smirk. Jack tried to calm himself down before turning to Chappelle.

"Ryan, I'm gonna need a few minutes alone", he requested, knowing that Drazen might require some convincing of a rather unconventional nature, not something that Jack wanted a by the book bureaucrat like Chappelle to witness.

"Sure, but I'm going to have someone in the other room, behind the mirror", Ryan replied.

"Fine. i want that someone to be Tony Almeida", Jack asked, which sparked curiosity in Chappelle.

"Almeida? Any reason why him, Jack?', he queried. He, like everyone else at CTU, knew that Jack and Tony were not exactly the best of friends, and after the bustup earlier that afternoon, Chappelle would have thought that Jack would keep his distance from Almeida.

"He wants the same answers I do", was Jack's reply. Nina was pretty much the only thing the two agents had had in common, and both had gotten to know her both professionally and personally.

Jack was ready to begin, and he planned to show Drazen no mercy.

"Do you know the woman in this photo?", he demanded in a normal tone, but Drazen simply smiled at him, as if he were immortal and feared nothing and noone.

"Do you know the woman in this photo?", Jack repeated, his voice louder and angrier and, just like he repeated his question, Drazen repeated his answer.

"DO YOU KNOW HER?!", Jack yelled at Drazen, who hardly reacted. Smashing his hand across Drazen's face, he threw the table across the room and pulled Drazen up by his collar. Leaning in close, Jack smiled at him.

"You can give me the silent treatment all you want, Victor, but the fact is, the world thinks you're dead. the US Government doesn't want to know about you, so you can consider your life to be well and truly in my hands, so YOU BETTER START COOPERATING!", Jack growled at him. This seemed to work when fear flashed through Drazen's eyes. Letting him drop back down onto the chair, Jack waited for him to start talking.

"Yelena", he said, his voice hateful.

"Do you know her real name?", Jack questioned. It was unlikely that Drazen had ever heard the name Nina Myers, but Jack had to be sure that Nina was actually Yelena.

"No, I don't. I know that she works here, under her real name", Drazen told him, with his use of the present tense an attempt to disguise his knowledge that Nina was indeed dead.

"How did you get to her? Did you offer her money?", Jack demanded. He wondered why Nina would help scum like the Drazens. She wasn't like Jamey, a single mother struggling to look after her son, and she certainly wasn't short of cash.

"We paid her for her services,', Drazen laughed as he realised how little Jack really knew about Nina Myers,'But your girlfriend was no angel, Bauer. We didn't approach her, her employees did. Apparently she's one of their best", he said, enjoying the look of disbelief on Jack's face. Jack looked at him with confusion, before turning his head and gazing at the mirror. He could only imagine what Tony must be feeling.


	5. Rememberance

**Eight months later....**

The screams of the newborn child echoed around the hospital room as a relieved Teri laid back, her face dripping with sweat. It had been a long and painful process, but her second child was now part of the world. Squeezing Jack's hand tightly, she smiled up at the proud father, who was trying hard not to cry with joy.

"Jack?", she said weakly.

"What is it, sweetheart?", Jack replied.

"Our baby girl, I want to suggest a name, and I hope you don't mind my suggestion", Teri said. She had thought long and hard about what their new daughter should be called, and she hoped that Jack would be comfortable with her choice.

"What's you suggestion, Teri?", Jack replied.

"I want to call her after your friend who I know betrayed you, but she gave her life so that me and Kim could live", she said, much to Jack's surprise.

"Nina? Are you sure, Teri?", he asked her. He had taken Nina's betrayal hard and knew that he would never fully forgive her for what she did, although he still felt guilty for killing her. For a moment, he became lost in his thoughts, before letting go of Teri's hand and walking out of the room without a sound.

"Jack? Where are you going, Jack?", Teri called after him, concerned. She was in no state to chase after him, and she knew that he had been depressed ever since the day of the primaries.

Tony couldn't keep his eyes off of Michelle Dessler and when she caught him looking at her, the smile she flashed him just made him fall in love with her even more. Michelle was Nina's replacement at CTU, and she was quite different to Nina. Although Tony was wary about mixing business with pleasure, he had started to become good friend with Michelle and he was sure that his wariness would soon fade. After all, Michelle wasn't Nina Myers, she was Michelle Dessler.

Jack stood at Nina's grave where, eight months ago, he had stood at the exact same spot and said goodbye. he had gone along to the funeral, as had quite a few people from CTU. Even though they all felt betrayed by Nina, noone remembered that on the day of her funeral. It had been a day for remembering their friend and co-worker Nina, not the terrorist and traitor Nina. Looking at the headstone, realising just how young Nina had been, he sighed heavily. Could he accept his daughter being named after Nina? It was Nina's sacrifice that meant that Teri and Kim were still alive, but Nina had also put them in danger. Mentally debating the dilemma, he sank into a reverie. Closing his eyes, he thought of what he and CTU had learnt about Nina since her death, but he also remembered the woman he had loved, the friend he had trusted. Standing up, he took one last look at Nina's grave.

"I miss you, Nina", he whispered quietly, before turning and heading back to the hospital.

George Mason couldn't help but smile as he watched Tony and Michelle. It was obvious to him, as well as everyone else in the office, that they had a connection, and George hoped that they would come to realise the chemistry they had between them. Although he wasn't a big fan of relationships between CTU personnel, h etold himself to turna blind eye to any that would form between Tony and Michelle.

It had been a busy day for the President-elect, and David Palmer was more than happy to slump down onto the couch. Sighing happily as he stretched his legs, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to nod off where he sat. He knew that the next few months would be not just buy for him, but historic for his country. Knowing that he had an uphill battle, he was confident that he would win the hearts and minds of most Americans. After all, it had been one hell of a ride even before the elections. Scandals, cover ups, the divorce with Sherry, the events in Los Angeles on the day of the primaries - it had been a rollercoaster. At times he had enjoyed the ride, but at others, he just wanted the ride to stop.

Teri's face lit up as Jack walked back into the room. Planting a passionate kiss on her lips, he embraced her.

"I'm ok with it, Teri", he told her. In a way, he was glad that she had suggested calling their daughter Nina.

"Thank you, Jack", Teri replied. She knew of Nina's betrayal, but to her, that didn't matter. Nina had given her life and that was enough for Teri to forgive her.


End file.
